Virgin Islands: How do you like your paradise?

Traditionally Britons sail round the Virgin Islands, but staying put is a lot more comfortable. Maggie O'Sullivan and Tim Jepson report on what three islands have to offer, from the preposterously exclusive to the merely luxurious

FIRST things first - the money. To rent Necker, Richard Branson's private island in the British Virgin Islands, will cost you $14,000 - as close to £10,000 as makes no difference. And that is just for a day. A two-week stay will set you back £140,000, a sum that would allow you to stay at the Savoy for a year, Butlin's Skegness for seven years and two months, and at Britain's least expensive youth hostel for 57 years.

But you know the form - if you have to ask the price, you probably can't afford the bauble. And the people who stay at this little sliver of paradise are very much not the sort who have to worry about where their next Learjet is coming from. Necker's guest books read like a Who's Who of - well, of the kind of people willing to pay the price of a family home for a fortnight in the sun: Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Robert de Niro, Oprah Winfrey, Michael J. Fox, Mel Gibson, George Michael and Diana, Princess of Wales . . .

So what are some of the world's richer luminaries getting for their money? A lengthy trip, for a start. Private idylls, almost by definition, are a long way from anywhere. After flights in ever-smaller and ever-more precarious planes, there is a choice of two final approaches to Necker's knuckle of rock, palms, coral reef and icing-sugar sands: helicopter or speed boat. We took the speedboat option from nearby Tortola.

Now, there have been several occasions in my life when I have rather fancied the idea of Grace Kelly on my arm - the Grace Kelly of High Society would do nicely - but I can safely say that Necker's private speedboat is probably the only time she would have deigned to join me. All white - inside and out - very big and very fast, it was just the sort of way you want to arrive at a private island.

Other Telegraph journalists had arrived here before me, although in considerably less style. In 1965, Andrew Alexander and the celebrated photographer Don McCullin were dumped here by the then Weekend Telegraph magazine to see if they could survive as castaways on a "desert island".

They couldn't. Back then, Necker - one-and-half miles long by three-quarters of a mile wide - boasted lots of rock, three palms and a swamp. McCullin's words on landing were: "I do not much like what I see."

Today, the island - bought by Branson in 1975 - is swathed in green and the colourful splash of tropical flowers, thanks to the Sisyphean efforts of full-time gardeners and the lion's share of the 50,000 gallons of water produced daily by the island's desalination plant. While McCullin was forced to eat sea grapes, dry coconut and prickly pears, now a resident Australian chef uses ingredients flown in daily from Miami to create mouthwatering meals that would not disgrace a Michelin-starred restaurant.

McCullin passed his days in a thirst- and mosquito-crazed stupor. These days "castaways" can indulge themselves pretty much any way they wish - and if the chosen indulgence is not available, the chances are it can be ordered in.

I made a fool of myself on the snooker table, drank Champagne morning, noon and night, idled away hours in a hammock cooled by a gentle trade wind, snorkelled over one of the island's reefs - by all accounts one of the best of the British Virgin Islands - and, in an uncharacteristic burst of activity, spent an hour or two at wave level in a small catamaran. Had the urge taken me, I could also have windsurfed, water-skied, played tennis, had a massage, exercised in the gym, swum in the pool or simply worked through every cocktail in the book.

Oddly, however, while Necker looks after its guests splendidly, it does not dandle them in the lap of luxury. The rooms in the beautiful main house are comfortable but relatively simple - Balinese furniture, colourful fabrics and small terraces with picture-perfect views. Two smaller and highly romantic villas sit on a headland in a half-hidden fold of the island.

Food, facilities and comfort aside, however, I think that I would also want a tiny bit more attention to detail for my £10,000 - sun-loungers, for example, that were not half-buried in the sand, and no empty water bottles littering the path to the beach. But these are mere quibbles. The staff - tanned, tall and beautiful sons and daughters of the Home Counties - were exactly right: it's easy to imagine American film stars lapping up their inimitable manners and the island's deliberately contrived house-party atmosphere.

And there's the rub, because what the super-rich are paying for, I suspect, is not the food, the setting, the staff or the frills - for these prices you can have just about any frill or luxury you desire elsewhere. No, what they are paying for is the absolute certainty of privacy - no long lenses, no autograph-seekers, no prying helicopters overhead and no fawning or pointed fingers on the beach.

Hell, said Sartre, is other people. No danger of that here. Hell on Necker is not other people; hell - at least for the likes of you and me - is not having the money.

Groups of up to seven can rent Necker exclusively for $14,000 (£9,400) a day, fully inclusive of meals, drinks, transfers and all activities and facilities. The price increases with the size of the group to a maximum of about £18,000 for between 20 and 24 guests. There are two Celebration Weeks yearly (September 5-12 and November 18-25) when the island operates as a "normal" resort: prices are £8,650 weekly for two. Booking and information through Limited Edition by Virgin (0800 716919, www.virgin.com/limitededition).

The plan was to kayak out to the next island, snorkel for an hour or so, then back to the beach restaurant for lunch. Unfortunately, the boatman wouldn't hear of it. "You've never kayaked before and you want to go out to Dead Chest?" He looked at my sister and me, dressed for our voyage in sarongs and flip-flops, and laughed. "You ladies should go to that bay over there."

He was pointing to a bite-sized white beach a couple of hundred yards from where we were standing. "But Dead Chest is Blackbeard's island," we said, looking wistfully at the lump of rock on which the pirate notoriously abandoned his men with just one bottle of rum and a cutlass. "Yes, but it's farther than it looks and you ladies wouldn't make it."

Fifteen minutes later, we dragged our brightly coloured craft on to the designated beach - deserted save for an assortment of chairs and a Champagne cork half buried in the sand. It was, we decided, unlikely that someone had kayaked here with a bottle of bubbly between their knees - they had probably asked housekeeping to deliver it via the service road which loops the 2,000-acre island. It was hot and we wished that we'd had the same foresight.

Peter Island, in the British Virgin Islands, was developed in the late 1960s by a Norwegian called Peter Smedwig. He shipped in the A-frame chalet-style buildings from Norway and named the island after himself. Now privately owned, the resort has more than 50 rooms, private bungalows and suites. Our room, if it didn't quite overlook the sea, was separated from the beach only by a strip of grass, a hedge and a couple of palm trees. At night, if we remembered to turn off the air-conditioning and open the windows, we could hear the Atlantic swishing in from the reef and breaking over the sand.

You might expect an exclusive island resort to feel claustrophobic, but this one certainly doesn't - even when the resort is full. "Where is everyone?" wondered my sister, as she clambered inexpertly into a hammock. I handed her a glass of Veuve Cliquot (ludicrously expensive but that discarded Champagne cork had given us ideas) and consulted my list of organised activities. "Perhaps they've all gone on the walking tour of the island or on the botanist trail? Maybe they've rented bicycles or taken the ferry to one of the other islands for the day."

"Having cocktails, more like," she replied. But they weren't. It was 6.30pm and the poolside bar was deserted. A warm breeze, carrying with it the scent of lilies from the flower arrangement in the lobby, rippled the surface of the pool. At first, all we could hear was the shriek of the blender as the barman mixed our banana daiquiris. But, when he had finished, another noise became apparent above the rustle of the trade wind: the scrape of knife and fork on china; the clang of spoon on metal serving dish; the low murmur of conversation. Of course. It was buffet night in the fine dining restaurant. And, despite the early hour, that's where our fellow guests were.

It's a resort thing: you're paying for three gourmet meals a day and there's not much else to do in the evening so you might as well get stuck in early. We joined the throng at the seafood buffet and piled our plates with king prawns and lobster. By 7pm, we were pushing back our plates and declaring that we couldn't eat another bite. Then a waiter asked us if we were ready for our main course. Eating too much is another resort thing.

The next evening, there was to be a steel band in the beach bar. So, after another idyllic day of snorkelling, swimming and lazing about in strategically placed hammocks and sunbeds, we made our way along the sand to supper. We paused for a moment to watch the pelicans diving for fish, with an inelegant sploshing technique which set the laughing gulls cackling like goodtime girls on a Saturday night.

A little farther up the beach, we passed a table laid for a private dinner for two under the palm trees. The beach bar was buzzing. As we ate, the steel band banged out vaguely familiar pop tunes. Then, suddenly, from the shadows tottered a phalanx of stilt-walkers. For half an hour, they swayed and lurched on their spindly appendages in time to the music. Then, appearing to tire of the whole thing, they sat down on the beach, took off their stilts and went to hang out with the band.

The excitement over, our fellow diners drifted off to bed. We thought there might be more life up at the other bar - and there was. A game of chess was under way in the poolside library. Since neither of us plays, we, too, decided on another early night - the better to save our strength for the day of loafing, snorkelling, drinking and eating that was to follow.

Peter Island costs from £2,700 per person, based on two people sharing, for seven nights in an Ocean View Room; price includes return flights from London, boat transfers from Tortola, watersports (although "noisy" watersports such as waterskiing are not available), and three meals a day. Further details and reservations from Seasons in Style (0151 342 0505; www.seasonsinstyle.co.uk).

A New Jersey couple checked into Caneel Bay Beach resort on St John. After two days, one of them cornered the manager and, panic-stricken, whispered: "I've got a mosquito bite! Do you know if anyone else in the resort has one?"

I'm showing the same manager my left calf, mottled with mosquito bites - small scarlet trophies from the back of my knee to my ankle. I can see that he is impressed. "But didn't you spray your room?" he asks. I say that I might have been bitten after I swam the snorkel trail along the coast. "Oh, right. They weren't resort mosquitoes then . . ." He's Canadian so I assume that he's joking rather than that his resort doesn't take guests' comfort seriously.

New arrivals are ferried in from St Thomas ("We will be arriving at Caneel Bay in 30 minutes - cocktail, anyone?"), then spirited by golf buggy to their rooms which are scattered across the 170-acre resort. The one- and two-storey units are oases of tranquillity: no telephone, television or air-conditioning (a wooden ceiling fan does the job ably). My bathroom had no bath either but the shower - with its curved stone wall studded with sea shells - was beautiful.

The resort, on the north-west coast of St John, was extensively renovated a couple of years ago but guests who have been coming here for 30 years - mainly Americans - will point out that Laurance Rockefeller developed it in the 1950s. Today, it is operated by Rosewood Hotels and Resorts, although the land is now a National Park - as with three-quarters of the island - making St John one of the least spoilt of all the Virgin Islands.

The locals like to joke that while the coastline runs right round the island, the road doesn't. However, most of the island's named beaches or mountain trails are accessible by hitching a lift or taking an open-top taxi from Cruz Bay or from Caneel Bay car park and then hiking.

On the other hand, why seek out some far-flung strip of white sand, lapped by clear blue sea and fringed with palm trees, when the resort has seven such beaches of its own (two are designated "for those wishing to hear only the quiet lapping of the waves and the rustle of the sea grape leaves"). There is even a bus which circumvents the property every couple of minutes to take guests to them.

If the thought of being confined to a resort scares you, then somewhere like Caneel Bay is ideal: it is large enough to offer privacy - try the pool because it's invariably deserted - but affords an escape to the real world any time you like. A short taxi-ride away is the island's tiny capital of Cruz Bay which offers several good shops, although there is none of the frenzied tax-free shopping that goes on in St Thomas. Its bars and cafés can become quite lively after dark.

The trouble is that Caneel Bay has cornered the market in excellence. Elsewhere, you won't find a restaurant as romantic as the resort's former sugar mill; you won't get free cocktails in a pretty terrace bar overlooking the sea; and you will have to pay to hire your snorkelling equipment, while masks and flippers are dished out free at Caneel Bay.

From the vantage point of my terrace at dusk, I watch a trail of wild donkeys plod home across the gardens. In the room behind me, the maid - who comes each evening to place a sea shell and a thought for the day on my pillow - is checking that I have sufficient fluffy towels to see me through the night; in my glass is a copious measure from my complimentary bottle of rum. Tomorrow I'll do yoga by the pool, then maybe I'll see how high I can pile my breakfast plate. But now it's supper time. I hope there's a bus waiting.

Double rooms start at around $400 (£265) per night. There are two meal plans: full American at £75 per person per day, comprising three meals a day; and modified American at £60 a day for breakfast and dinner. It makes sense to opt for the latter, since breakfasts are generous and you may well want to go down to Cruz Bay for lunch. Further information and reservations from Rosewood Hotels and Resorts (020 7333 7013; www.rosewoodhotels.com).